


Blood Poisoning

by StripedSunhat



Series: A Village of One [8]
Category: Girl Genius (Webcomic)
Genre: Gen, Guilt, Klaus is a bad parent, Klaus screws up, Poisoning, Pre-Canon, Tarvek's lingering shadow, The Blame Game, Why Gil needs therapy, Why Klaus needs therapy, Why Sparks need therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2020-02-29 05:54:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18772558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StripedSunhat/pseuds/StripedSunhat
Summary: It was all his faultNot every accidental poisoning ends humorously.  Klaus is not actually a god nor is he omnipresent and when he screws up it is never small.Gil won't wake up.(but who was meant byhe?)





	Blood Poisoning

**Author's Note:**

> You know what this series has had too much of lately? Laughter. Let's fix that.

Medical beds had an almost magical ability to make anyone confined within them seem smaller, younger.

More breakable.

Just last week Klaus had been passing by one of the common areas of the school and had caught sight of Gil. He’d been talking to Theo and as he threw back his head to laugh at something Klaus had been struck by how grown up Gil had looked. It had stopped him in his tracks. Gil wasn’t the skinny, wide-eyed little boy that barely reached Klaus’s waist anymore. He hadn’t been in a long time. He was fully-grown, as tall as Klaus himself, broad shouldered and confident. One of the younger students had run up and tugged on Gil’s shirt. Without even pausing in his conversation he'd reached down and hoisted the girl up in one arm. Once she was properly settled he'd turned his head and smiled at her. It was the sort of smile you might see…

…You might see an adult give a child.

The realization had hit him like a punch to the gut. Gil wasn’t a child anymore. He was practically an adult. To that little girl in his arms he already was.

He’s spent the rest of the week trying to figure out where his son had gone and how he’d missed the replacement. No matter how hard he had looked he hadn’t been able to see his little boy.

It was easy to see right now.

Unconscious, wrapped in stark white sheets and dwarfed by an army or machinery Gil looked more like a child than he had in years.

Klaus ran a hand through his son’s hair. Gil didn’t stir.

“Why isn’t he waking up?”

“He will,” Dr. Sun said, not looking up from his charts.

“But why **_isn’t_** he?”

“Klaus. He **will.** When he is _ready_ to wake up,” Sun said, still not looking up.

“You’re worried.”

“I’m not worried I’m upset.”

“What is it? You don’t think he’s going to wake up at all do you?”

“Let me rephrase. I’m not upset I’m angry.”

“While he’s lying unconscious, possibly dying is hardly the time to be –”

“I’m not angry at Gil; I’m angry at **you**.”

Klaus reared back. “What?

Sun aggressively slashed at something on his clipboard with his pen. “You unilaterally decided to slip Gil poisonous substances without informing anyone else.”

“I was building up his immunity. And following _your_ procedures to do so.”

“You didn’t tell anyone! You just went ahead and poisoned him without ever considering any outside interference. The world is not a lab Klaus and your son isn’t a specimen.”

“Pardon me for wanting my son to survive –”

Dr. Sun thrust himself into Klaus’s face, angrier than Klaus could remember seeing him in decades. “If you don’t change how you go about preparing him for the dangers of the world he’ll die long before he ever has to face them.”

“I –” Klaus’s mind went blank. Gil was hurt. Gil wouldn’t wake up.

And it was all his fault. “I – I –”

Sun took pity on him, putting a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Go make sure the empire’s still standing. I’ll come get you if anything changes.”

Klaus went.

* * *

Boris slipped into the room, braced for a knife to the head. Klaus indulged him. “Herr Baron, Theo DuMedd wishes to speak to you.”

“Tell him to come back later.”

“Her Baron –”

“I don’t **care** what –”

“It’s about Gil.” Klaus froze. Boris took a deep breath and continued, “He says what he wants to speak to you about is concerning Gilgamesh.”

“Send him in.” When Boris hesitated he snarled, **_“Now.”_**

Boris clutched nervously at his clipboard. “May I suggest, Herr Baron, you refrain from throwing any knives at his head before he gets a chance to speak.”

**_“Send him in now.”_ **

He threw another knife at him on the way out.

DuMedd slipped inside a moment later. He quailed at the sight of the knife stuck into the doorjamb but soldiered forward until he came to a stop in front of Klaus’s desk. With shaking hands he set a large, dark glass bottle on the desk.

“What. Is. This.”

“It’s –” DuMedd swallowed and licked nervously at his lips. His fingers tapped a rapid tattoo against his leg. “It’s, um, It’s an Upside-Down Spy Toddy. It’s a drink. I invented it.”

“What does this have to do with Gilgamesh?”

“Gil was – Gil was with us last night. We were all testing it. But no one else had any problems. I don’t know what happened.”

“Testing it. By testing it do you mean to tell me Gil was _drinking it?_ ”

“Yes.”

Surging to his feet Klaus stormed to the door hurled it open. **_“Get me Dr. Sun. Immediately.”_** Once that was done, he turned back to the DuMedd. **_“So what you are telling me is that Gil’s current state is all your fault.”_**

DuMedd swallowed. “I didn’t – I don’t know. But Gil has to be alright.” He made a twitchy, half aborted gesture towards the bottle. “They’ll be able to use this to help him right? If they know what happened to him they can fix it.”

“That is a question only Dr. Sun will be able to answer. You’d best pray it is a yes.”

“Y–Yes, Herr Baron.”

“Now, when Dr. Sun arrives you will go with him. You will provide him with whatever notes or research you have on the creation of this abomination, if there are any. You will answer any questions he has.”

“Yes, Herr Baron.”

“We will discuss your actions further once Gilgamesh had woken up.”

Theo gulped, visibly paling, but nodded.

**_“Now get out of my sight.”_ **

* * *

“Well?”

Once again Dr. Sun didn’t look up from his work. Unlike before though his posture wasn’t set in a stiff line instead back to his normal distracted, too-busy-to-deal-with-things-like-manners Sun. “He’ll be fine. He should wake up in the next two days or so.”

“That long?”

“He got knocked through quite a loop. Your poison combined with that impressively strong drink of Theo’s combined together in some highly unexpected ways.”

Klaus folded his arms and huffed. “Gilgamesh should have known better than join in drinking something like that.”

“Gil couldn’t have known what you had planned,” Dr. Sun said, finally looking up to properly display how displeased he was. “Funny thing that, a son not expecting his father to poison him.”

Klaus flinched at the accusation but pushed it down. Sun was wrong. “He should have been prepared either way. He should **always** be expecting to be poisoned. There’s always going to be a line of assassins after him. He is the future –”

“Baron Wulfenbach. Do you ever get tired of saying that? What he is is a seventeen-year-old boy. A boy spending time with his friends, in his home, in the middle of the most secure part of the entire empire.”

“He’s not a child anymore. He needs to show a sense of personal responsibility and basic sense when it comes to things like that.”

“The time you agreed to a drinking contest with fifteen different jägers at once. The time you challenged the entire hoard to a drinking contest. The round of ‘is it poisoned or is it just really, really old’ you played with the food you found in your father’s lab. Field-testing antidotes for Screeching Measles Mumps by first infecting yourself with it. The entirety of the Liechtenstein incident. The time Barry –”

“What are you doing?” Klaus growled.

“Starting a list of times you’ve ingested something stupid. If you like I can itemize it later.”

“That is not remotely the same thing.”

“Of course. You’re the golden exception to every rule.”

“I wasn’t –”

“Smart? Responsible? Sane? I am already well aware; I was the one piecing you back together.”

“I wasn’t nearly as **important** as Gil is.”

“As far as all of those assassins are concerned Gilgamesh is a orphaned charity case.”

“Some of them may come after him thinking he’s Teufel’s son.” Dr. Sun leveled him with a flat look of displeasure. It was the same look that used to always make Klaus spill every piece of a secret back when he was little, if only to make Dr. Sun stop looking at him like that. Apparently it still worked. “There might be a false heritage trail in the official records leading from Teufel to Gil. There was an assassin who showed up a few months ago who knew about it.” Dr. Sun stared at him. “I can admit it wasn’t my smartest plan but it’s too late to change it now.”

Sun pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath. “I’m baring you from Gil’s medical room until further notice. And I’m asking Von Pinn to guard the door.”

* * *

Klaus was _not_ a child who will be cowed by the force of Dr. Sun’s eyebrow.

Anymore.

Gil was _his_ son and this was _his_ empire. He would visit him whenever he damn well pleased.

When he saw Von Pinn standing at attention in the doorway he very nearly turned back around on sheer instinct.

 **“Klaus.”** Klaus squared his shoulders and marched forward.

“Let me through.”

She did not pretend she didn’t hear him. Instead she drew herself into a full loom and moved to better block the doorway. “I have been informed that Gil has been poisoned and is not waking up.”

“He has. That is why I am here.”

“I have been informed it is **all your fault.”**

Klaus growled. He tried to force his way past her but she was too well built a construct. She grabbed his arm and growled back at him. “I have told you before, **Klaus** , that son or no Gil is one of **my** charges.” For a brief moment Klaus was worried it was about to come to violence outside Gil’s room. His son did not need that. Fortunately she still had just enough respect to not stop him when he wrenched his arm from her grip.

“Is it to be one of _those_ talks then?” he demanded with a bravado he won’t admit is false. He purposely omits her name. ~~Either name.~~

“If you leave now it won’t have a change to become so.”

For several long moments the two of them stared each other down. Before either of them can crack a nervous stuttering voice interrupted them. “H-Herr Baron?”

“What?” he demanded without breaking eye contact.

“Your advisors – that is, there’s a fire – um that is, one of your advisors is on fire – or, um, well, he _is_ a fire. It’s growing. He’s growing? Um… You’re wanted on the bridge, Herr Baron?”

Klaus refused to call leaving with the messenger running away in a fit of cowardice.

* * *

The cowardice came the next morning when Dr. Sun gave him back permission to visit Gilgamesh and the hour he spent paralyzed before he could make himself set foot in the room.

* * *

Gil woke up exactly in the middle of Dr. Sun’s estimate for when he would. Klaus was perched at his bedside when he does. Gil blearily drifts in and out for about ten minutes while Klaus gently talked to him. He couldn’t remember what he said but to be fair Gil no doubt didn’t either. Gil fell back asleep for another two hours after that. Klaus spent the time bent over Gil’s bed thanking every higher power he can think of.

When he next woke up it was actually properly awake.

Gil blinked up at the ceiling, suddenly awake when just a second ago he had been unconscious. Klaus leaned into his field of vision, scanning over his face for any sign of complications. “Father?” Gil said, pushing himself upright.

Tension Klaus hadn’t realized he was still carrying drained away. “Gil. How are you feeling?”

“Like I tried to stop a battle clank with my head. Was there another assassin?”

“No this one is entirely on you.”

Gil winced. “Great. What happened?”

“You tell me.” Klaus reached over and set the bottle down next to Gil’s bed. “Theopholous DuMedd asked to speak to me while you were unconscious.”

Gil went completely still. By contrast the medical equipment surrounding him began going wild. “It was my fault. I –”

“Enough,” Klaus said, holding up a hand. Gil fell obediently silent. “I am not interested in your excuses right now.”

Gil’s hands fisted into the sheets. He sat up perfect still, staring down at his white knuckles. “Yes Father.” The medical equipment continued to wail.

Klaus rushed to check the readings. What if Gil was relapsing? He shouldn’t be but what if Sun was wrong? Klaus couldn’t let that happen. Not to Gil. The readings were all fine. Agitated not ill. Guilty. Right, good. Klaus could deal with that. Gil wouldn’t die because of guilt. He straightened his shoulders and turned back to his son. “You know better than this.”

“I’m sorry Father.”

“To behave so recklessly as this – Did you even think about what you were doing?”

“I’m sorry, Father.”

“Did you ever _once_ think about the potential consequences of your actions?”

Gil full body flinched and curled into himself. “I’m sorry.”

“This will not happen again.” He took a deep breath, trying to will the statement into truth. “And in the future, should young DuMedd, or any of your other ‘friends’ have any bright ideas such as –”

Gil’s head snapped up. “Theo’s still on the airship?”

“Yes.” Something in Gil’s shoulders untensed. “While DuMedd will face punishment for his hand in this it was ultimately your spectacularly bad judgment that led to you joining him.”

“I apologize Father.”

“I expect you to do better in the future.”

“Yes Father.”

“This will not happen again,” he repeated.

Somehow Klaus didn’t believe it.

But that was his own fault.

**Author's Note:**

> So you know how a while ago I said Klaus supported Gil/Theo for _most_ of Gil's adolescence? This is where that ends. Now Theo's whole relationship with Gil is being reevaluated in Klaus's head and not in a good way. Good thing Gil's going to be going away to Paris soon, far away from him, right?
> 
> Not shown, Boris sending a ten page rambling mess of a letter that basically boiled down to HEALP! and Jacob sending a reply that literally only said, 'I've only been gone for a week. How have you _already_ screwed things up this badly?'  
> And now I'll stop adding ending notes to this I swear.


End file.
